Canada's Montgomery delivers gold

Vicki Hall, Canwest Olympic Team02.20.2010

Canadian skeleton athlete Jon Montgomery celebrates his gold medal performance after his final run at the The Whistler Sliding Centre in Whistler, BC, during the 2010 Olympic Games, Friday February 19, 2010. (Peter J. Thompson / Canwest News Service)

Canadian skeleton athlete Jeff Pain reacts to his time after his final run at the The Whistler Sliding Centre in Whistler, BC, during the 2010 Olympic Games.Peter J. Thompson
/ Canwest News Service

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WHISTLER -- It was supposed to be their track. It was supposed to be their home ice advantage.

Yet one by one Canada's national skeleton team racers (had been taking) took turns blowing it Friday night at the Whistler Sliding Centre. And then Jon Montgomery came roaring down the run.

Montgomery the 30-year-old car auctioneer from Russell, Man., with the turtle painted on the front of his racing helmet, made it his track Friday, out-running Latvia's Martins Dukurs on his fourth and final run to win the men's 2010 Olympic skeleton gold medal.

"That was what I'd set out to do at the top of track before the fourth run," said Montgomery, who finished with a four-run combined time of three minutes, 29.73 seconds.

"It feels, is stupendous a word. It's outrageous, unbelieveable,. all those things rolled into a big ball. It's bearing down on me. I don't have words to describe it.

"I was happy with that performance. I said to myself coming up the out run that that's gotta be close to good enough."

After he'd finished he had to stand and watch Dukurs, who'd had a 0.18 second lead heading into the final run. Dukurs's lead kept shrinking as he went down the track. He had trouble with the final corner and bumped the wall of the track slightly with about 100 metres to go.

But slightly is deadly in this sport of 100ths of seconds. His time of 3:29.80 went up on the board. Montgomery did a series of five or six fist pumps in celebration. He high-fived the crowd. The crowd chanted 'Johnny, Johnny, Johnny.'

"I was biting my nails for sure," said Montgomery who came in last night thinking he could win.

"I knew if I came out and performed today like I did yesterday that it would be a close race," he said. "I didn't feel it was beyond my capabilites and beyond reach. Perhaps that's what helped me keep it in perspective and stay calm about it all."

"Montgomery's run salvaged what had been a crummy day for Canada.

Mellisa Hollingsworth tumbled from second to fifth with a disastrous final run in the women's event. Calgary's Jeff Pain, the 2006 Olympic silver medalist ended up xxth in the men's. And Toronto's Michael Douglas got disqualified because of a snafu in the inspection area before the start of the men's race.

But Montgomery came away golden and all seemed well. The medal was Canada's eighth of these Games. There are now four gold, three silver and one bronze.

Russia's Alexandre Tretyakov got the bronze in 3:30.75.

Dukurs was nothing but classy in defeat, assuming that's what you chose to call it.

"All training I was fighting with this curve," he said of No. 16. "That's my black curve.

"Actually not," he said when asked if he was surprised that Montgomery was able to catch him. "This is home track and he can do that. In training he was smashing down and doing some good runs. That's the sport and that's home track advantage. Canadians need that. They built the track and Canadian won so I'm also happy."

After two runs Montgomery was second with a time of 1:45.17, 0.26 back of Dukurs. Montgomery closed the gap to just 0.18 with a 52.02 run, the fastest of the heat.

The win came in the wake of Hollingsworth's disappointment and what must be agony for Douglas, who didn't even get to race.

"You feel for athletes when they don't perform to their level of expectation and to their capabilities,' Montgomery said. "My good buddy and close friend had a heartwrenchign day. My heart bleeds for him. You have to put those things out of your mind and put them out of mind."

Toronto native Mike Douglas, 38, was seventh after the Thursday's runs with a time of 1:45.87. But he was late for an equipment inspection prior to the start of Heat 3 and was disqualified.

Calgary's Jeff Pain, 10th after the first two heat and 11th after three finished ninth in 3:31.86 after a strong final run of 52.65 seconds.

"I couldn't do my Olympics in a better way, with Canada watching," the 2006 bronze medalist from Turin said. "I was trying to be as focused as I can because this is a fast track. I was really happy with my final run. I was able to focus all the way to the finish line. My last run was a really good run."

Pain battled through a torn right oblique injury that he suffered in a race at Igls, Austria on Jan. 22.

"We were hoping it would come around," said the 39-year-old Pain, a silver medalist at the 2006 Games in Turin, said Thursday night. "I re-aggravated it today. We've done everything, anti-inflammatories, pain killers."

Montgomery had won the World Cup here last season. A silver medalist at the 2008 world championships in Altenberg, Germany and a fourth place finisher in 2009 at Lake Placid, N.Y., Montgomery had one World Cup podium this season, a win Cesana, Italy, on Dec. 4. He started Friday just 0.26 seconds back of Dukurs, who led after heats one and two with a combined time of 1:44.91. Montgomery was a 1:45.17, just ahead of Russia's The sport made its Olympic debut as a full medal sport in 2002 at Salt Lake City. Canada didn't reach the podium in 2002.

As for the turtle, Montgomery got that just before coming here. The inspiration came after members of the national team visited with a sport shaman in Revelstoke, B.C. last September. Among the things the athletes did was find their spirit animal. Montgomery's was the turtle so he had Vancouver native artist Phil Gray design the artwork.

"He accompanies me on my helmet and sled," Montgomery of the turtle, which is painted in a native theme along with a thunderbird.

"The thunderbird is the main theme but it was my idea to put the turtle on the helmet," Montgomery said earlier this week.

"I thought it was fitting to pay respect to the First Nations people and apparently their folklore states that the thunderbird lives up behind Blackcomb Mountain. It's a powerful animal and one of their most prized symbols. I thought it would be good to pay respect to that and honour the people here and have my spirit animal guide me down the track."

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